This blog is for sharing creating a space by collective of individuals who fight and resist capitalism, and trying to build a new world, on ruins of capitalism. Against all forms of domination, exploitation, humiliation, in human relations and in other relations. Against all forms of oppression!

Nikos Romanos was a model teenager, a good student from the bourgeoisie, son of a well-known novelist, until on December 6, 2008 he was involved in a traumatic event. His best friend, the young anarchist Alexandros Grigoropoulos (15 years) falls under the bullets of the police in the streets of Athens. Shot in the heart, he dies in his arms. This event leads to some of the most intense urban riots of the early 21st century in the West, and Nikos is already there on the front line that same evening, enraged, dignified in the face of the media (total rejection), and respected by comrades despite his young age.

To the rhythm of the backlash from the Greek anarchist movement, Nikos is forever changed by this experience, immediately throwing himself headlong into the anarchist struggle, until his arrest five years later after a double armed robbery in the Kozani region. Tortured, accused (and convicted) of belonging to the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (armed anarchist-nihilist organization), which he denies, while taking responsibility for the robberies (and their need in order to spread anarchy) in a confrontational attitude face to face with justice, like his five co-accused Giannis Michailidis, Dimitris Politis, Andreas Dimitris Bourzoukos, Argyris Dalios and Fivos Charisis. On October 1st 2014, they were all sentenced on to fifteen years’ prison.

Athens: First announcement from the occupied Polytechnic School in Exarchia, 1/12/2014

As of today December 1st, 2014, the Athens Polytechnic School is occupied so as to become another centre of solidarity and commitment to the struggle of anarchist hunger striker Nikos Romanos (since 10/11/2014), as well as the rest of the comrades who are on hunger strike in solidarity with Nikos – Yannis Michailidis (since 17/11), Dimitris Politis and Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos (since 1/12).

Nikos Romanos has been held hostage by the State since February 1st, 2013, after the double expropriation of a bank branch and the ELTA post office in Velventos, Kozani. His act is part of the polymorphous anarchist struggle against all those responsible for the pillaging enforced by the State and the Capital on the entirety of society.

The political choices of Nikos Romanos and his militant commitment to the struggle mark a continuation of the December 2008 revolt. He is struggling for a world without Power, without exploitation and bosses.

The struggle of the hunger striking prisoners for a breath of freedom, against the savagery of incarceration and the ever-increasing repression of the prison system (e.g. suspension and denial of furloughs, widespread use of solitary confinement, construction of new Type C maximum security prisons), goes side by side with the struggle of all repressed people against the subordination and the ravaging of our lives.

This occupation intends/aims to lend characteristics of an open, massive and combative focus of struggle to the liberated ground of the Athens Polytechnic School, alongside any other instance of fight that is directed towards vindicating the claims of Nikos Romanos (educational day release from prison) and towards the social liberation case in general.

Athens: Second announcement from the occupied Polytechnic School after Exarchia riots, 2/12/2014

On the 2nd of December 2014, a demonstration took place in solidarity with anarchist comrade Nikos Romanos, prisoner on hunger strike since the 10th of November, demanding the granting of educational furloughs. Today’s march saw participation of thousands of people, some of whom later headed for the occupied Polytechnic School.

For us, the occupied ground of the Athens Polytechnic School is not a value in itself. On the contrary, it is yet another piece on the mosaic of dignity and resistance against all those who want to turn society into a graveyard. It is a piece on the mosaic of resistance against the modern-day totalitarianism that spreads its power over our lives; from the anarchists who have gone on a hunger strike, the mobilizations against maximum security prisons, and the hunger strikers from Syria, to all those who are fighting for dignity and freedom across the world.

We call on everyone in struggle to take any necessary initiative towards the vindication of hunger striker Nikos Romanos: from faculty occupations, to production blockades; from breaches of the media omerta, to attacks against the guardians of order.

Let’s rise to the challenge of our time in the face of state repression, contrary to rationales that want us to remain passive spectators and voters. Uncompromising solidarity with Nikos Romanos, who is on hunger strike since 10/11, and hunger strikers in solidarity Yannis Michailidis (since 17/11), Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos (since 1/12) and Dimitris Politis (since 1/12).

TEXT OF SOLIDARITY OF NIKOS MAZIOTIS MEMBER OF REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE ON HUNGER STRIKER ANARCHIST NIKOS ROMANOS

The Anarchist Nikos Romanos is one of us. He is one of those like us who rebelled against authority, against the law and order that wants people servants, of nationals and obedient, is the one who introduced what “law and order” is with the murder of his friend Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the dogs of the state Korkonea and Saralioti.

Comrade Romanos is not of those who confiscate the homes and property of the people as does the bank expropriated and sentenced. He did not find the laws to earn as we have politicians ethnic fathers robbing and murdering the people and workers to make the rich richer. He did not steal the salary and pension of any poor breadwinner as they do this with laws multinationals, bankers and businessmen servants, governments and parliamentarians. Did not found the laws depriving the bite out of the mouth of the poor the laws that kills and leads to suicide of thousands of people, causing them to eat from garbage and sleep on the streets. Comrade Romanos is of those who are faced with dignity with the blows received from the slaves of the state and of the rich who are paid a seven hundred euros per month for the miserable job.

On Monday, November 10, the comrade has begun a hunger strike demanding the right to make use of the educational leave. Nikos Romanos such as Iraklis Kostaris doing hunger strike for the same reason are among the dozens of political prisoners and imprisoned fighters who are currently in Greek prisons at a time when the social policy of genocide that are imposed by capital and the state with occasion of the economic crisis linked with hardening repression in general and especially towards other inmates fighters many of whose are members of the armed revolutionary organizations and accused for armed struggle. The legislating of prisons type C with special detention conditions primarily for political prisoners and imprisoned fighters fits into this context. Every prisoner companion is one of us, so we consider that we are joining the fight for Freedom, the struggle for Social Liberation from the yoke of capital and the state, then the assertion of a claim is all.

In the adverse condition of imprisonment, where daily life is summarized
in the word subjugation, there are minimal means left to fight with.
Here where the prospect of complete liberation seems far, against the
total surrender they offer you as the only choice, come moments you
consider worthy of negotiation. No matter how foreign negotiating with
authority is to us. In no case however will we negotiate our anarchist
characteristics, we will not make a step back on the integrity of our
words, we will not sell out our struggle for which we are hostages of
the state.

Therefore even the self-destructive choice of hunger strike, which
wrinkles the humane facade of the state, is worthy. It consists a threat
to lay bare the murderous nature of the state, against its delusional
well-fed subjects. The murderous and tyrannical nature of authority, as
experienced by every living being that suffers and is murdered in the
factories, the war zones, the mine-trapped borders, the farms,
laboratories and abattoirs, the prisons and psychiatric clinics. And it
is worthy for any demand each hunger striker considers crucial for
themselves, whether it is about their living conditions, dignity, or
freedom. In this case, that my comrade and brother Nikos Romanos, is
putting his body as a barricade in order to demand ways out of the
asphyxiating condition of incarceration, I sought a way to express my
solidarity in practice. From the position I am in this present
situation, I decided to participate in the rotating hunger strike
beginning by us the comrades arrested after the double robbery in Velvedo. As of
today 17/11, I start a hunger strike until his demand is met.

This choice of ours intends to contribute to the further mobilization of
the comrades outside, in order to multiply and intensify the multiform
actions of solidarity, something that opens one more battle front with
the state, therefore also a scope of awareness of new comrades.

The hard times we are going through is another reason to fight harder
and not compromise.
Because the state will always form the social correlations making the
choice of individual or collective insurrection an object of tough
punishment, it is time to disengage from defeatist “realisms” and
“weighed up” decisions of retreat which always give ground to the enemy,
postponing the action for a future which inactivity itself makes it
inevitably more ominous.
It is necessary to overcome ourselves and the entrenched perceptions we
drag inside us.

The following text is intended to be the continuation of a dialogue on the tools of anarchist insurgency and the ways of organizing ourselves; a dialogue that was initiated at an international anarchist encounter somewhere in the countryside of France and now continues from a prison cell in Greece.

The opinions expressed here are my own personal views, so it should be clear that they promote a particular position on the issue. However it is not desired to have one position prevail over all the others; what matters is how the various different, yet complementary, points of view communicate and interact with each other. In the face of an enemy that’s very flexible as regards the use and multitude of means and forms of attack, the diversity of considerations and practices on the part of anarchists is self-evident. Whichever different perspectives cannot be promoted dogmatically but rather based on a rationale of multifaceted attack.

First we need to talk about the very concept of organization, a word quite misunderstood in anarchist circles.

We face an enemy with complex and complicated functions. One of the main characteristics that make the enemy powerful is the constant evolution and organization of the social paranoia we are experiencing today: a technological, military, architectural, civil, industrial, economic, scientific organization. Every aspect of this world is being organized, constantly correcting its imperfections through an intelligent system which has a great number of servants.

In the face of this condition, whoever believes that one is able to fight without organization is naive to say the least.

“In 1972, the pigs mobilized 150,000 men to hunt the RAF, using television to involve the people in the manhunt, having the Federal Chancellor intervene, and centralizing all police forces in the hands of the BKA; this makes it clear that, already at that point, a numerically insignificant group of revolutionaries was all it took to set in motion all of the material and human resources of the State; it was already clear that the State’s monopoly of violence had material limits, that their forces could be exhausted, that if, on the tactical level, imperialism is a beast that devours humans, on the strategic level it is a paper tiger. It was clear that it is up to us whether the oppression continues, and it is also up to us to smash it.” (Ulrike Meinhof)

We can thus say that whoever does not organize himself/herself will turn into a harmless aggregation that will be assimilated to the alienation mechanisms of the existent sooner or later. They will lose the combative attributes that make them dangerous for the enemy and subsequently be deported from the field of antagonistic battle.

Conversely, whoever has decided to fight this system will need to organize their hatred, in order to become effective and dangerous. So, the discussion about ways of organizing ourselves, having attributes inherent in our anarchist values, begins somewhere at this point.

The dilemma then is whether we will organize ourselves through a central anarchist organization that will be the reference point for the anarchist movement, or in a decentralized and diffuse manner through anarchist affinity groups that will maintain their political autonomy both in terms of action and collective decisions.

As regards the centralizing mode of organization I will speak in general, instead of specific, terms about who, and how, have opted for it in Greece.

If you look at it historically, these two forms of organization have always existed but never coexisted. In the Spanish civil war, anarchists were organized at the central level to combat the fascists, and the same thing happened during other revolutionary attempts.

The same is the case with most urban guerrilla warfare organizations in the past decades that approached new comrades in the context of a particular political project, thus aiming to strengthen the organization instead of an armed diffusion, where the autonomy of each individuality opens up the possibility of creating chaotic fronts of attack.

This understanding of organizational ways should not be viewed separately from the social and political conditions of the time.

The combatants of those times studied their adversary with their own analytical tools, fought for freedom and paid the price with murders, harsh prison sentences, tortures, solitary confinement wards. Those among them who haven’t renounced their values make their own critical assessment of the experiences acquired through the years, experiences which obviously deserve careful study; but if we cling to that we are doomed. What matters is what we’re doing today, in the era we live in.

So, for me, the central organization and the revolutionary centralism are ghosts we need to banish from us.

Besides, an indication of this is the fact that all the remaining central anarchist organizations have simply kept the glorious hallmarks of those times, having sunk deep into reformism while they renounce direct action and rebellion in everyday life, and have nothing to do with something pertaining to combativeness. They refuse to understand the enormous changes at the social and political level, they refuse to talk about the edges of contemporary oppression, the advancement of science, the technological fascistization, the domination of multinationals, and merely trot ideologized theories about the conflict between capital and labour out, using terms that were written one hundred years ago, in another era of capitalism.

Worse still, they refuse to act, unable to understand that if they lived in the glorious past they reminisce about they would only be extras because they would never take any risks.

Now, as regards the revolutionary centralism within urban guerrilla groups, even though I understand the causes and effects behind such a choice, I disagree with that because I believe that our goal is not to walk all together according to a common political project-program but rather to diffuse our means and urge everyone to safeguard their autonomy, thus contributing to the creation of new perceptions and possibilities for the intensification of polymorphous anarchist action.

This is why I opt for the informal organization, which I consider more qualitative and effective for reasons I will explain later. The basic component that gives tangibility to the informal organization (and not only) is nothing other than direct action; otherwise, we would be just a bunch of charlatans with dissident rhetoric.

The most important thing for an anarchist is deciding to undertake action because, in this way, the individuality breaks through the fear inflicted by domination regarding the choice of revolutionary action; when you take action, you overcome inhibitory factors that lead you to inactivity, you take your life in both hands and acquire the ability to affect to a greater or lesser extent the circumstances that define your life. Undertaking action is the equivalent of reclaiming our life that was stolen from us, thus shaping the characteristics of a free human who fights to get rid of their shackles, their social commitments, on a daily basis, abolishing the authoritarian roles imposed on them and building a culture that gestates the quality of a new life, the life of an anarchist insurgent who inflicts open wounds from razors on the contemporary world.

After having made such a decision, comes experimentation. Anarchists shouldn’t have fixed positions; they’re constantly on the move because, without moving, they are driven to self-destruction by ideological dogmatism. They reconsider things, criticize themselves, and explore the collective experience to adapt it to the current historical data. They put their hearts on ice to withstand pain, and set fire to what’s left to wipe out the traces of their past “quiet” life. From this point forward, what counts is the struggle, but also vengeance, because whoever felt violence firsthand and did not seek revenge are worthy of their sufferings.

Let’s go back to the issue of practical experimentation, that is, action with many ways, many methods and many forms.

I believe that the organization of our destructive desires should be expressed through Action Networks of high distinctiveness, where everyone will be able to read one’s own words and works, get inspired, reflect, and act alongside us or fight against us. Being (communicatively) visible is part of our purpose to bring about the maximum degree of social polarization in order to clarify everyone’s role in the authoritarian edifice, and then pass from armed critique to a critique of arms.

In my opinion, the responsibility claim is what gives meaning to an action, leads it to your desired objectives, and explains to whoever is interested in breaking the vicious circle of oppression and passing on the offensive the motives and reasons that made you do it. Simply and clearly. In a world of generalized information overload and terrorism of virtual bombardments, no action can speak for itself unless the subjects-actors speak out about it.

The high level of distinctiveness that I mentioned above is related to both invariable insurgent names and acronyms; for me invariable names in insurgent actions are of particular importance because, in this way, your actions are linked to each other, stepping up their momentum at the same time.

Furthermore, your discourse takes on greater importance, as it is connected to the consistency of your action. You have the possibility to devise strategies of insurgent action making your overall rationale understood, creating a point of reference and issuing a challenge to action, thus exacerbating the revolutionary threat, breaking up the State’s monopoly on violence, as anarchists claim their share of violence to turn it against the enemy.

Turning now to the use of acronyms, it’s similarly useful on a more comprehensive level; their main importance is their contribution to recognizing resistance that is manifested without a centre, but instead horizontally and chaotically at the same time, depending on the choices of rebels.

I think that the existence of acronyms is also important as a propaganda tool. Translation networks can do the work of a messenger between insurgent groups regardless of whether or not the latter use an acronym. Nevertheless, the existence of one or more informal networks that use acronyms and recognize one another enhances the momentum of actions placing them within an overall context, rather than something fragmentary, and creates a solid (as to its existence, that is, continuous action) structure which is anarchist and insurrectionary at its root.

Instead of an epilogue

It is clear already that in the name of “citizen security” artificial social threats are constructed in a way to provide political alibi for committing the greatest state crimes, establishing more and more practices of control and surveillance, and toughening anti-terrorism laws. All this is aimed at enabling the privileged citizens of developed countries, who have been awarded this prestigious label, to feel safe while their statist protectors massively and indiscriminately sow death around them.

This is why I envision a belligerent condition in the urban centres where every day the rebels will organize plans for attacks, creating an asymmetric threat that will tear social cohesion and political stability to bits and sow insecurity in the reproduction centres of capitalism. The smooth flow of goods will no longer be taken for granted, and the representatives of oppression will live in fear.

We have nothing to wait for, so we organize ourselves and strike the society of capitalism; revolutionary actions shape the objective conditions, let’s multiply them.

Strength to all captive and fugitive comrades
Strength to the 4 anarchist hunger strikers in Mexico*

* Transcription note: At the time of writing Fernando Bárcenas, Abraham Cortés Ávila, Carlos López Marín and Mario González, incarcerated in different Mexican prisons, were still on hunger strike. On October 17th, 2014, the comrades called off their strike. On October 31st, Mario was released from prison. Freedom for all!

Translated by Act for freedom now!

And it is necessary to go forward, to fill all the Voids, even if not
self-destruct, by drawing strength from the past … Every era has
its own inquisition. THE ‘VOID’ EXISTS AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT FALL INTO IT.

A breath of freedom away from the cement of the prison.

A few hours where the glance can travel free without tripping over bars.
A sky without barbed wire. Steps you do not need to count. Moves tuned slightly
differently.

On November 10th friend and comrade Nikos Romanos began a hunger strike
demanding a breath of freedom. Having passed into an Athens university
through exams, he is fighting to win something that according to their own
laws he is entitled to: his educational furlough.

We on our side stand next to Nikos Romanos and his struggle, next to
every move he desires and must take to accompany his battle, next to every
expression of aggressive solidarity… Because the stars you see diving
into the void are the ones that carry our dreams, our enraged desires,
our smiles full of meaning… Because we do not exchange a life on the
edge with anything.

IMMEDIATE GRANTING of the demand of comrade Nikos Romanos for the
educational furlough.

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BANKS TO THE PEOPLE!

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)